IUCN leadership still refuses to
criticize Korea's destructive naval base, though construction work is
killing rare soft corals, numerous endangered species (including from
IUCN's Red List), and destroying indigenous communities and livelihoods.
This stance from IUCN defies its traditional mission, conserving nature
and a "just world."

NEW RESOLUTIONS ARE NEEDED FOR EMERGENCY VOTE OF ALL IUCN MEMBERS

********************************

Police crack down on Gangjeong villagers protesting navy base construction a few minutes from the IUCN convention site.

ABOUT A MONTH AGO, this committee was joined by dozens of
co-signers from around the world, in circulating open letters to the
leadership of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
(IUCN), and its associated members. The statements were remarking on
recent actions of IUCN that directly conflict with its important
historical mandates.

While continuing to proclaim its devotion to protecting Nature,
including the planet’s endangered places and species, IUCN leadership
has ignored or whitewashed projects that are assaulting these wonders,
and undermining human rights and sustainable livelihoods. For example,
the organization inexplicably planned its giant September convention
only a few minutes’ bus ride from one of the world’s great current
outrages---the construction of a large new naval base near the village
of Gangjeong, on Jeju Island, the “jewel” of South Korea. The naval
base project, meant to become home-port for Korean and U.S.
missile-carrying warships 300 miles from China, is threatening one of
the planet’s last great soft coral reefs, and other coastal treasures,
killing numerous endangered species (including one on IUCN’s famous Red
List), and destroying centuries-old sustainable communities of local
farmers and fishers. The Gangjeong villagers have
been protesting the base project for years, and are being met with
daily police brutality. Such activities represent all that IUCN has
traditionally opposed.

Then, a few days ago (August 22), an official letter arrived
from IUCN leadership informing the indigenous villagers that their
application to host a small Information Booth at the convention was
denied, though dozens have been granted for corporations and other
groups. No explanation was offered. (More details below.)

In our earlier communiques we referred to public statements from
IUCN Director-General, Julia Marton-Lefevre, supporting the Korean
government’s environmental policies, including its decisions vis-à-vis
the military base and the infamous Four Rivers Project (also discussed
below.)

Her praise encompassed the government’s seriously flawed
“Environmental Impact Assessment” (EIA) for the base project. This,
despite that the EIA ignored three of the most critically endangered species at Gangjeong, the Red-footed Crab, Sesarma intermedium; the Jeju Freshwater Shrimp Caridina denticulata keunbaei),
endemic to Jeju Island, and the Boreal Digging Frog pictured here (an
IUCN Red-List species.) It also ignored effects upon Korea's only pod
of Indo-Pacific Bottle-nosed Dolphins which swim regularly through the
area. Neither did it explore crucial impacts upon 40 species of soft
coral, including nine that are seriously endangered, and five that are
already protected by CITES (Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). This activity takes place
only 250 meters from a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, Tiger Island.

A vast array of rare, highly
threatened corals are being killed to make way for the navy base. Most
were ignored by the government's EIA.

(In an upcoming letter we will report on a far more authoritative environmental impact statement now being conducted, secretly,
by a team of well-known, non-governmental volunteer scientists from
several countries---some with prominent IUCN member organizations. They
have already documented a spectacular enormous coral garden, 7.4
hectares large, within a mile of where the destruction is now advancing.
The only other place in the world where there may exist a soft-coral
forest of this magnitude is in the Red Sea. (The divers are operating
secretly because the government deported several prior researchers.)

On a related matter, the Director General has praised the government’s “Four Rivers Restoration.” Alas, however, this is not “restoration.”
As the Korean environmental community has made clear, it’s a re-routing
of Korea’s four great wild, winding rivers into straight-line channels,
partly encased in concrete, combined with extensive dam
building, and dredging, to make them more business-friendly. The effects
on riparian communities are devastating. In four years the population
of Korea’s migratory birds, such as white-naped cranes, has been reduced
by two-thirds and in many areas, the rivers have become algae-infested
cesspools. At the recent Ramsar Convention in Bucharest (July, 2012),
the World Wetlands Network announced a “Grey Globe Award” to the Four
Rivers project, ranking it among the five worst wetlands projects in the world. The IUCN community should publicly denounce it, too.

Throughout the run-up to the Convention, neither Director-General
Marton-Lefevre, nor President Ashok Khosla, has expressed any
disapproval of the above ongoing assaults on Nature. Neither have they
made mention of the police beatings and arrests of the indigenous
protestors from Gangjeong village who are trying, every day, to protect
Nature’s treasures from being destroyed---activities that the IUCN was
actually created to protect.

90% AGREEMENT

The response to our earlier e-mailers was enormous, with at least
90% of respondents supporting our positions---including many from
mid-level IUCN leadership. In a brief burst of democratic openness, the
IUCN’s web-page reprinted our letters, while responding with
generalities about its great concern for Nature, and democratic process,
and it opened the page for public comments. But after the first 20
comments appeared, all of them critical of IUCN’s position, the
responses were erased off the page. On the other hand, the Korean
government's manifesto on its dubious "green" development policies
continues to be displayed. So much for democracy.

IUCN also announced that it will propose that attendees pass a proclamation (“Nature+”)
concerning the glories of Nature, but which still does not mention
what’s going on ten minutes away, and while also denying permission for
the local community to formally state their views in the Congress
meetings. Up to this moment, the leadership of IUCN continues to avoid
any expression of concern or even awareness of the impacts on Nature and
community, just down the street, though such concerns are central to
the organization’s mandate.

Why is IUCN leadership remaining so silent?For the
leadership, it may be more of a financial and political matter than one
of conservation or social justice, which is what IUCN was supposed to
be about. There is also an underlying reality:A large percentage of the cost of this WCC convention in Jeju is being covered by the very people building the military base. Those would be the Korean government, and several giant global corporations, notably Samsung.

Having accepted the funding, it is difficult to criticize the funders.

IUCN’s top leadership has apparently determined its best course now is
to avert its gaze while the government kills the shrimps and the frogs,
destroys the corals, and jails the protesting local farmers. Meanwhile,
IUCN can freely proceed with its great meeting next door to save
Nature.

But the organization has gone still further. IUCN has granted the
Korean government (the “Korean Organizing Committee of the 2012 WCC,”
the chair of which, is Lee Hongkoo, the former Prime Minister of Korea, a
supporter of the base) approval-power over any South Korean
organizations wanting to present alternative views. These include
whether to grant permission to speak on the issues at the meeting, even
when they are invited to do so by bona-fide IUCN member organizations,
or merely to host an information table at the event. (See #2 below.)
IUCN has also agreed to partner with its Korean financial sponsor in
constructing and presenting the formal program of the Convention. So
now, the government, eager to advertise its green initiatives, will be
represented on every one of the five “prime-time” plenary panels of the
convention, either by government or corporate officials. It is the only
country in the world to be so
privileged. None of those panels will focus on the Gangjeong military base construction, or the Four Rivers fiasco.

Finally, the questions become these: Whose IUCN is this? Does the complicity of IUCN leadership truly represent IUCN membership? Can anything
useful still be achieved at the WCC in Jeju? On the latter point, we
actually think YES, there still is. We call upon the IUCN participants
to use the occasion to take stands on the following:

FOUR STEPS TO
CHALLENGE MILITARY BASE DESTRUCTION & TO RE-ESTABLISH IUCN'S
HISTORIC MISSION TO PROTECT NATURE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

#1. Assembly Resolutions: Shut the Base; Make a New EIA; Stop the Four Rivers Project.

Since our prior letters, our committee has become aware of the
great work of several independent groups of environmental attorneys,
representing IUCN-member organizations. They are working toward a
series of Draft Resolutions to be presented at the WCC Assemblies,
including all members. Among them are these:

Shut the Base. The first Resolution will demand
that Korea end its military base construction, and that all ravaged
lands be restored to their former condition. The Resolution will speak
in behalf of the endangered species, the rare soft corals, the sacred
sites, and the local villagers who are putting their lives on the line
to protect these treasures.

The once-celebrated southern Jeju
coastline is now being covered in concrete, thanks to the Korean
government, Samsung corporation, and the silence of IUCN.

It will also describe the many IUCN rules and prior decisions that
have been violated. These include, for example, the important principles
of the Earth Charter passed by the 2004 Congress, as well as the UN
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Convention on
Biological Diversity, the World Heritage Convention, the UN Declaration
on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic and Social
Rights, among many others.

New Environmental Impact Assessment. A second Resolution may demand preparation and acceptance of a new Environmental
Impact Assessment of the naval base construction near Gangjeong---free
of government control and censorship---that will include a truly
accurate assessment of the dredging and other impacts on the soft coral
reefs, and the killing of rare species that are all absent from the
government’s document. (As indicated above, a new independent EIA is already being prepared by several outraged IUCN scientists.)

End The Four Rivers Project. A third Resolution
will demand that Korea immediately discontinue its notorious Four Rivers
Restoration project, and begin to actually restore the great rivers to their prior condition.

There is one potential complication. Unsurprisingly, the attorneys
were told by some IUCN management not to bother with these motions.
They will be “too late,” past deadline, they were told. And yet, the
historical record of IUCN offers many examples of last minute
submissions. They have always been permitted if they raise new, urgent, unforeseen
issues, and if at least ten IUCN members co-sponsor the request. There
are already more than ten willing IUCN co-sponsors. And they certainly
qualify as urgent new matters for IUCN. If we don’t stop this
destruction now, by the time IUCN meets again in four years, the corals,
the Boreal Digging Frogs and other species, and many local people will
be dead. We must not let that happen.

#2. Let the Gangjeong People Speak.

Information Booth Crisis. As briefly mentioned
above, the Gangjeong villagers, working to save habitats, biodiversity,
and the Red-List species from the military’s destruction, applied a few
months ago through official IUCN channels for permission to set up one
“information booth” among the dozens of others that have been okayed
within the convention center throughout the meeting. That would seem a
benign enough request, but a runaround ensued. Instead of routinely
okaying the application, the IUCN passed it to the Korean government
(the KOC, mentioned above) which is heavily invested in silencing
any and all opposition to the base or the Four Rivers project. Korean
newspapers have also been silenced on these matters. Repeated efforts
over recent weeks to confirm permission for the information table were
ignored. Finally, a few days ago, they received an official letter from
the Director of
IUCN’s Constituency Support Group, Enrique Lahmann. He said this:
“Unfortunately, we are not able to accommodate your request for an
exhibition booth at the WCC.” That’s it. No reason was given. And no
explanation of how this fullfills official IUCN proclamations of
democracy and inclusiveness.

No Protest Allowed Within Two Kilometers.
Meanwhile, the Korean government announced that it would not permit any
demonstrations or even picketing within two kilometers of the
Convention. So, no information table inside. No demonstrations
outside. Where are we again? Isn't South Korea supposed to be a
democracy?

During the upcoming Assemblies, IUCN leaders must at last
denounce the government for these appalling moves, and permit the
villagers, who are actually doing IUCN’s work, to not only have their
information table inside the convention, but if they so choose, to go
ahead and demonstrate freely outside, just as if this were a democratic
society.

Addressing the Full Assembly. All of the above is not enough. The Gangjeong community should be permitted ----no, invited by
IUCN leadership---to address the opening and/or closing plenary of the
IUCN convention, to provide the full story of this local disaster and
what they are going through. If the government resists, the IUCN
leadership should insist. We all need to hear from the indigenous local
farmers and fisher-people, and the custodians of the sacred sites,
about what they have seen and experienced. Everyone needs to
hear this. After all, we are meeting on their indigenous soil, on their
island, on the coast that has nurtured them for thousands of years.
So, our own group inquired as to the possibility of the villagers
speaking at the assembly, but we were told by IUCN officials, as above,
that all South Korean presenters have to be approved by the government.

Here’s some good news. Several IUCN member groups have already
(quietly) invited local leaders to participate in some of the groups’
own scheduled workshop panel time to tell the Gangjeong story. (In
our next letter, we will brief you on who is speaking and at what time.
By delaying this announcement, we hope to avoid government crackdowns
against the groups.)

#3. Go Visit the Destruction Sites, and the Sacred Sites.

Members of our committee, and our Korean colleagues, will be
arranging tours of Gangjeong village, the sacred sites that are
threatened, and the front-lines of the ongoing confrontation between the
villagers and the police at the construction site. It is horrifying and
inspiring. (If you want to join those outings, please respond to: gangjeongintl@gmail.com.) It’s very easy to get there---ten minutes by local bus.

#4 Institutional Self-Examination.

Finally, we suggest that all IUCN members take this moment to
assess what is happening in Jeju, and to initiate a process of
institutional self-examination, questioning and re-organization. None
of us can afford to lose the moral and ethical leadership of one of the
world’s greatest organizations. We need to do whatever is necessary to
assure that IUCN will revive its historical mandate to place Nature
first, and to protect social justice.

Thank you for your attention.

Please let us know if you want to see the proposed resolutions;
we will forward you the final texts when they are complete. We can also
forward you the new independent Environmental Impact Assessment, when it
is completed. And you can sign up for a visit and tour of Gangjeong
Village and the military construction site. (OUR EMAIL ADDRESS IS
BELOW.)